Creating a topic

For information about topic types and hierarchies, see Topics.

To create a topic:

1. Open a topic set. Any previously-defined topics will be listed.

   

2. Click Create new topics.
3. Enter the name of your topic and click either Add topic.

   The default topic status is inactive.

4. (Optional) Add child topics by hovering over your newly-created topic and clicking Create subtopics.

   

   Note: The topic ID (the small gray text to the right of the blue name) is the name that appears in reports. If you edit a topic name (the blue one), you need to remember to edit the topic ID, as that will remain unchanged until you manually change it.

   If you create a hierarchy for one set of topics, make sure the other topics in your topic set have the same number of hierarchy levels so that all topics have a similar level of granularity. Limit the topic hierarchy to two levels (parent-child).

   See Plan topics for more information.

After you create a topic, associate the topic with relevant phrases by creating rules, as described in Creating rules, below.

Creating rules

Rules are combinations of logic and words (including keywords, nearby words, and linguistic connections) that define which phrases are associated with a particular topic. For example, for a new topic called Shoe department, you could create a rule that captures phrases containing the words shoe and department. Text Analytics would then tag all phrases containing those words (for example, the shoe department is well-organized) with the Shoe department topic.

To create rules:

1. Optionally, at the top of Topic Builder select a language to apply the rule only to comments in that language.

   

2. Optionally, at the top of Topic Builder select a topic segment rule to apply the rule to the criteria defined in that topic segment rule. For more information, see Rules components and How rules are applied sections in Standard topics.

   

3. Click a topic to open it for editing, and then select the Rules tab.

   An option to add new rules is displayed.

4. Type the new rule. As you type the first keyword, additional dropdowns and text fields appear, allowing you to modify the rule further.

   

   To create multiple rules from one rule entry, type multiple comma-separated keywords into the topic rule search box. For example:

   

   For details about rule components, see Rules components and How rules are applied sections in Standard topics.

   To create one rule that applies to multiple keywords, see Creating a word group.

5. Click Add new rules.

   The new rules are created and added. For example:

   

   In some cases, an informational message appears next to a rule component, suggesting that you change the component to improve the rule. Use your judgment to decide whether or not to follow the suggestion.

   

6. Click on the total or unique phrase count (to the right of the rule) to populate the panel with the phrases captured for a given rule, and read some of them to verify you are capturing the phrases you intended to capture.

Assessing captured phrases

As you create rules, it can be helpful to read through the captured phrases in the annotation panel. For phrases that are captured by rules, you can indicate whether the phrase is appropriately tagged, then modify your rule if necessary to exclude it.

To assess captured phrases:

1. Open a topic set and click a topic. If the topic is a parent, expand the topic hierarchy and click the lowest-level child topic.

   By default, all the phrases associated with the topic are displayed. To filter the phrases further, you can click the phrase count associated with a rule.

2. (Optional) To refresh the list of comments that are tagged with a topic, select the appropriate phrase loading option, and then click Update:

   Comment loading option	Description
   Precise	Loads all the phrases. Precise is the default option.
   Balanced	Loads a moderate amount of phrases.
   Fast	Loads a small subset of phrases. use this option when you have a very large data set, and when system performance is poor.

3. Read the phrases in the annotation panel. By default, you will see all the comments captured for each individual rule. Click View unique matches to see only records tagged by that topic that match the rule in question. If that rule was removed, those records would be lost from the topic results.

   Thumbs down and thumbs up icons help you keep track of which comments are accurate and inaccurate.

   For more information about the annotations panel and how to assess phrases, see Annotations panel filtering options.

   Note: The thumbs up and thumbs down buttons that appear in phrases captured by rules are used to answer a single question: Should this phrase be captured by the specific topic you are assessing? Marking a phrase with a thumbs down does not remove it from the topic.

   

Activating a topic

After you are satisfied with the accuracy of the captured phrases, activate the topic for either of these purposes:

• To make a previously invisible topic visible in reporting.

• To push rule changes inside an already activated topic to reports.

To activate a topic:

1. Go to the Topics screen and open a topic set.
2. Select the checkboxes next to the topics you want to activate.
3. Open the Status dropdown at the top of the page and click Activate.
   You can activate your topics at any time, however:

   • Activating takes longer than usual if a deployment is in progress.
   • The system might display an error message if you try to activate when text processing (i.e. parsing) is in progress. If this happens, try activating again once parsing completes.
   Note: Activating a topic affects the current language and all segments.